By: Metin Tekkalmaz
Tales of 1001 Women
As a result of civilization of the mankind, man learned how to live in a society, and living in a society have always meant division of labor. Certain tasks and roles are assigned to certain individuals or groups of people. Gender has been one of the most common effects in the sense of grouping people. In different territories, different cultures, and different time periods, women and men had numerous roles, which of those sometimes get closer and sometimes go far away. It can be generalized that women were usually given a secondary position before the equality movement of the recent years. But even today, old-fashioned ideas, somehow, affect people. Tales From The Thousand and One Nights is one of the effects, which appears in the childhood of Western World.
Tales From The Thousand and One Nights is really a good representation of the role of women in an oriental point of view. In fact it is not just how east considered women, but reflection of the attitude of the world against them. Woman is introduced with her different characteristics in the book, and it is not easy to call them positive in most of the time.
The first woman appears in the book is wife of King Shahzaman and she cheats on his husband, and the second, wife of Shahriyar, is in the same condition with the first one. How women are introduced in the first place is as unreliable beings. Wife of jinnee is one other who deceives her husband. But we feel intelligence in this case. It is how she convinces the kings to �pierce� her with their �rapiers�: �If you do not come down in fear, I will wake the jinnee, and he shall put you to a cruel death.� (18).
But after all those evidences Shahrazad, daughter of the vizier, surprises the reader with her virtue. She risks her life to prevent her father and other girls from the fury of the king. Her own words represent idea of virtue in woman as �Give me in marriage to this King: either I shall die and be a ransom for the daughters of Moslems, or live and be the cause of their deliverance.� (19). Other than her virtue, her intelligence is also very significant. The way she uses to keep the king busy is a result of a high intelligence. Shahrazad seems to be the ideal woman in the first 76 pages of the book.
Another significant characteristic of the woman in the book is about how cunning they can be. It is a little different than intelligence since it includes evil in it. How the wives of the tailor and Jew behave about the dead hunchback is a good indicator of the thin line between cunning and intelligence. Words of wife of the tailor: �� take the body in your arms; we will cover it with a shawl and carry it out of the house this very night. I will walk in front, crying: �My child is ill, my poor child is ill! Who will direct us to a doctor�s house?�� (24), and words of wife of Jew: �If the corpse is still here by daybreak, we are lost! Come, we will carry the body up to the terrace and throw it into the house of our neighbour the Moslem.� (25) show the shrewdness in the woman nature of the book.
It is possible to find women in some other good roles such as matchmaking. In the Tale of the Lame Young Man and the Barber of Baghdad the old woman tries to help the young man with all of her good will. Besides the girl that the young man loves appears as an instance of emotional woman character. She changes her mind about the young man after she hears his illness caused by the love towards her.
In the tales of first, second and fifth brothers of the barber, feminine characteristics of women are more significant. Women use their beauty to impress men and make men to do what they wanted. Under the influence of beautiful women the first brother sews for free, the second brother faces with a funny situation and the fifth brother is beaten and taken all his money. And the sixth one is cut his lips and penis, because he is caught with a married woman. In these parts women cause nothing but trouble and the reason is evil cleverness of women and weakness of men against them.
Tales From The Thousand and One Nights includes many ideas from the Eastern World and women are one of the most important elements of the tales. We can say it is based on the women and their roles in the society. Whoever the real author of the book is and whether it is done consciously or unconsciously, he, she or they represent the roles that are assigned to women in the society in an oriental point of view. As I made my point in the beginning these have actually been the thoughts of the people of the world somehow, somewhere in the history or present and the influence of this kind of books will be exist as long as the books themselves exist.
Work Cited:
Tales From The Thousand and One Nights. Trans. N. J. Dawood.
England: Penguin Classics, 1973.